Deuce

My bad. I've attached a frame grab that should show the position necessary to even get the initial presentation even with a .3 lens on. It's tough. One hand only, right arm completely extended, holding the end of the "closet pole" with just the thumb and a couple fingers. It's doable. I wouldn't really want a camera step because I just don't want to be any closer to that horizontal stabilizer. I've got over a 1000 jumps out of King Airs, so I'm not afraid of horizontal stabilizers in general, but that 99 one seems ominously close and low. I think Kallends suggestion of having "Time" start after exit is really interesting. Edit: Because my team is hardcore, we've talked a lot about the different types of aircraft we've jumped and potential solutions. At Lodi they usually start with the King Air, go to the 99, start up the other 99 and then get the Otter going. Lodi does like 200 tandems a day. It's amazing. Anyhow, it would come down to mock-ups so that every door-jamb could be practiced. On the Pac and the 99, the step is outside and below the door, like a running board on a truck. When you are out there, the distance from the step to the grab bar is about the same as an Otter, but the hole in between is smaller. What would have to happen would be for the inside competitors to have a foot outside the aircraft down on that step. The jam would be WAY different for the same exit as it would be in the Otter. I just think everybody is pissed because they've got 20 years of evolution of jams and exits out of Otters that are going to have to be reinvented for new aircraft. It's not just 4 way teams. Tandem masters have been bitching as they learn the pac, as have camera fliers (the prop blast is a biotch) Change causes bitching. Whatever. and Hello Randy Connell! I am proud to have once been your camera flier. You have a great attitude as a competitor and as the poor knucklehead in charge of those meets! Cheers!

Yeah, I was at Elsinore training Fri-Sat-Sun and we ended up doing about 7 jumps a day. I went through at least 300 ounces of mixed gatorade-lite and water and think I might have peed once each day. You know it's hot when you get in the plane and lean your head over to rest a little and get your neck burned by your three rings. Wow. That thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon was a doozy. I was sorry I couldn't get together with you and Amy, but I was just dead meat at the end of each of the jumping days. Platypus makes a neat collapsible "canteen" that you could fill with water, drink on the plane, and then tuck in your jumpsuit. My camera suit has so many pockets I can bring 4 bottles of water with me if I need to (or my team mates need it).

Steve, I'm enjoying your hospitality right now. Me and Bobby, Gary, and Julie are camped out at your place. Thanks. You win whatever argument we ever may get into. JP

You fucker! And your rediculous nonsense about quitting the sport. My 2000th is coming up quickly and it will be inspired, wierd, and include you. Or I'll kill you. Because I can.

Really? I almost always do tandems in my RW bootie suit. Reason? LEG POWER. Super-floppy suits for tandems are gay (particularly on tall people), but you do need to make some concessions for control, especially when you are a smaller TI like me. I nail my exit, throw my drogue, then steer with my feet. As small as I am (5'7" and 160 lbs these days) and as slow as the drogue on my Racer is I can't afford to jump anything floppier for fear of totally hosing the vidiots. Bootie suits rock for tandems. Chuck I did that a couple times just because you do it, and you are the monkey. Yeah, tons more power just like booties on an RW suit or camera suit. If I had somebody crippled up I would definitely do a bootie suit. Otherwise, for me, it's just too hot. I prefer the tall, gay, baggie look.

That rocks! Have a great time and retire a little this time, eh?

Blaming the aircraft for that is a mistake. I haven't read the whole thread yet, JP, but when you are holding on to the bar with your right hand, right toe on the step and left foot trailing along the fuselage to get enough separation to get the exit and the f*cking thing stalls left and down and you hit the horizontal stabilizer, it's the plane/pilot/suitability for chunks outside the door.. I've filmed RW out of everything at Eloy and Perris and some planes are just more suited to it than others. We just started flying a PAC at Byron. If it's what you've got, you'll find a way. Watching me huck a tandem out of the thing is hilarious, but it's actually easier to do AFF than the Kingair cause there's more bars for the student to grab on to. The problem with RW competition is that the competition is out of Otters (usually). If you are just jumping to participate, that's no problem. If your team wants to be on the podium, you have to practice out of otters. Teams with money can do randoms and blocks in the tunnel all day long, but the winning points are going to be on the hill, and that's important for both the flyers and the videographer. And the 99 just hauls ass on jump run. Linked exits are hard. I'll show you some neato video of a linked exit out of the 99 where when the wind caught the team, all their feet touched before they blocked it back out and started turning. Hey, in 10 years we'll be doing all our competitions out of PACS. It will mean physically smaller teams will do better and we'll probably really change door jams. It'll be neat, and it will still be fun. Edit: I have ton (50?) of competition training jumps out of the 99. It's big, comfortable, astoundingly fast to altitude and has a super-big-assed almost Otter sized door. There is a step below the door, like a PAC and a bar along the top of the outside of the door. I'm pretty sure it has an inside bar too. Problems? It's fast on jump run. Like a King Air with the flaps up. It seems the solution to slowing things down as much as possible while minimizing stall potential is to put it into a very shallow dive on jump run. You get used to it. There is no camera step, and I don't know if I'd want to be any closer to that horizontal stabilizer anyhow. My solution for this is to grab the little stub of the pole above the door, extend my right arm completely, and get my right toe on the step and put my left foot as back towards the fuselage as possible. When they go I open everything I've got, wings, booties, hands, funny faces, everything. If they get into that relative wind while you are in their burble you get to say hi and exchange some paint. It is doable, though. My team calls it "weight training for Otter exits" JP, you know I've got over a 1000 King Air camera jumps, somehow that 99 stabilizer just seems closer and lower. Like I said, though, it's a nice plane and would be easy to adapt to competition. Exits are tougher, but we're a tough breed! Argh!

Ah! Getting all maudlin and wussie in public was all worth it to get a post out of you! What happened, somebody wasnt' watching you learning how to make the world a better place for democracy! Hope all is well! (And Corinne and I worked it out

Well, thanks all. This was much more about Shannon than about me. BAM! one of us is gone and then what? Well, we mattered to some people, and that's all anyone can axe. Shannon mattered. So many more of us do. I even do a little. You matter. Pull on time.

How very strange you both are. After a race horse races, it usually pees once the horse analogue of adrenaline passes. The mechanics of this is the horses penis distending to just about full length (about two feet sometimes) and then a very high pressure burst of urine blasting out of the business end. Pressure like hydraulic mining kind of pressure. Then the main event is over and there is a couple post squirts and everything goes back inside and the women stop blushing. The guys look at each other and think "Um, when I think about it, I'd have no use for that". Glad I could be of help. Angry black men I couldn't understand who were wearing smokey bear hats taught me some useful stuff, and one of the best was "when it's hot and you don't have to pee, you aren't drinking enough water" It took me a few weeks to understand them, because they spoke backwoods Marine Corps, but they knew their shit. "PUCH FO-ARD ONA CHAJA HANNO!" It was funny because we looked to the black Officer Candidate to translate and he said "Fuck You!. I'm from Chicago. I don't know what this motherf*cker is sayiing!"

Um. Calm down. We are all under a death sentence upon leaving the aircraft unless we so a bunch of stuff in the right order on time. Camera jumpers, like tandem jumpers pull high so they can fix or destroy stuff that is trying to kill them. Camera is harder and more dangerous. Like tandems. Give the extra time to fix problems and have fun doing the extra cool stuff that cameras and tandems provide. Of course its insanely dangerous. Even without tandems and cameras. Duh.

Yeah, geez, what possessed me? I guess Shannon blinking out really bugged me. Being all hedonistic I wondered what would happen if I blinked out like that. I'm sure I'd get a flag draped coffin and the folded version of it handed to my wife by a guy who hated me. Just a wierd mood. We used to to a lot of that here. Not so much anymore. JP

Send me one I'l evaluate it, and send it back. I'm flying camerra for the gold medal advanced team this year, so you might consider a donation and a patch for my jumpsuit. God, that was shameless.

You first. Then I got some doozies

Oh, god, that's nothing compared to the nonsense County General Hospitals get in the emergency rooms. "What's the nature of your emergency" "My period is coming and I gots cramps. Gimme some midol" "My ear wax is really bugging me. I'm going deaf"

Dude, I worked in the Alameda County Jail for three years, Oakland, Berkeley, Fremont, Dublin. At visiting, there were tons of gorgeious, clean women coming in to see these thugs. I asked a senior depurty what the deal was and he said: "Outlaws and stray dogs are what the pretty girls like: Struth.

A phrase I learned one hot August in Virginia that works is "If you don't have to pee, you're not drinking enough water" Glad you're OK, Bill.

Powder blue tuxedos ROCKED!

Are you down with THAT OPP? You are such a compllcated woman! No, I am not down with OPP. Don't have the heart for it. As to Ontario, yeah, I'm down with them. You get the patch the next time I see you if you promise to sew it on your jumpsuit. JP

The "real" OPP is the Ontario Provincial Police. I have the patch.

Um, because I haven't done it with someone I wasn't in love with. OPP sounds gross to me. LIke "whoops!". I think I'm pretty out of touch. "Yeah, I'd possibly marry her" was a prerequisite of sex when I did it. That sounds silly, doesn't it? "Sex could result in a baby. I'm willing to have a baby with this woman? says the very horny guy and girl. Is that OK? Does the baby have an obligation on the father?

Um. I never figured this one. Down with OPP while still commited to your own P. How does that work and why? Guy can't do it? Guy is faking it? What? I'm real surious why a guy isno't hitting the buttons (or whatever)

Um. I've jumped with Lew and Mary (Lew even put me up at her beautiful house!) and they are both worth going just to jump with. Lew is an artist at freefall photo composition and Mary is a genius at making formations work. So are BillVon and Amy, who I've jumped with (and stayed with, and have had stay over) People, you are in great company. The greatest reason to skydive is the wonderful, educated, articulate people you get to jump with. And the stoners. Just jump. And get names and addresses of who you can stay with. I recently jumped and swam with Amazon because of DZ.com. (She swam in her bra BTW). I have pictures of jumping with her, but not swimming.... I also bummed rides from Swedes and stayed with an Englishman immigrant named Skreamer, and took advantage of a Hilton Employee discount due to this website. Feel the love! JP

So far, not the single track. You have a link?'